placenamesConlig
An Choinleic
Conlig’s industrial heritage is linked to the old lead workings between Bangor and Newtownards, where mine buildings and mineral-rich spoil survive.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Choinleic · Irish · main form · validated name
- Conlig · English · main form
Place & story
A nineteenth-century mining landscape
Mining at Whitespots resumed in 1827 under the Newtownards Mining Company, which expanded the shafts and installed new machinery. Over the following forty years, workings extended through more than six miles of shafts and levels. At the height of activity in the 1850s, the mines employed about 400 men and boys. [2]
What the mines left behind
The Whitespots–Conlig complex retains engine-house remains, chimneys, capped shafts and heaps of waste rock. Its ores included galena, the principal lead mineral, alongside copper- and zinc-bearing minerals. The site is also noted for harmotome, an unusual barium mineral. Specimens from the workings are preserved in the Ulster Museum’s collections. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Ards Lower
- Civil parish
- Bangor
- Coordinates
- 54.62780, -5.67705 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413229 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Conlig. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Conlig — Visit Whitespots Country Park · Ards and North Down Borough Council
- Whitespots–Conlig lead mines, site summary 529 · I. Enlander, M. Dempster and P. Doughty; Earth Science Conservation Review, National Museums NI
- Lead-mine chimney at Whitespots, near Conlig illustration: based on a Whitespots Country Park, Newtownards (3) by Albert Bridge. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.